“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

As year 2021 grudgingly winds down in its malign glory, I confess to a certain feeling of dread about what year 2022 will bring. Hopefully, it won’t top the past annus horribilus.

But I fear it will be just the opposite.

Even as I sit here shivering in the Arctic dawn of one of the most severe cold snaps in recent years, I can’t help but think of the Noah-like flood that swept over the lower Fraser Valley barely a month ago. Then there were the monsoon rains that enveloped the entire Lower Mainland and the Coast Range on its periphery tearing up highways, washing away bridges, cutting off Vancouver from Interior B.C. and killing at least half-a-dozen people.

And it wasn’t just the extreme west side of the province. In a matter of minutes, a raging summer wildfire destroyed most of Lytton in the Fraser Canyon. Four months later, Merritt on the Thompson Plateau was almost swept away by the rampaging Coldwater River as it burst out of its narrow defile.

Meanwhile an “atmospheric river” of rain in the mountains north of Princeton spawned a muddy torrent that gushed into the small town and its neighbouring communities of Tulameen and Coalmont on the rocky banks of the Tulameen River.

And if all of this wasn’t enough, there was the infamous “heat dome” that affected almost the entire  province with searing heat and pungent forest fire smoke that was a major factor in the heat stroke deaths of more than 500 British Columbians and made the province a “no go” zone for thousands of tourists which in turn caused a financial meltdown for much of the tourism industry and shriveled most of the cherry crop in the Okanagan Valley.

No question about it. It’s been a hell of a year, leaving many wondering if we’re facing act two of this horrific melodrama next year? And you may have noticed that so far I haven’t said a single word about Covid, quite possibly the greatest threat of all to our beleaguered province as well as the whole world for that matter.

Well, let me say this about that. First, I’ll state the obvious. Covid isn’t going anywhere. Neither is Delta, nor the latest variant, Omicron. Unless fate smiles on the eight billion of us crowding the globe, we’ll be exactly in the same difficult spot we’re in right now, namely bored out of our minds, grieving for ones we may have lost, saddened by the loss of more than five million of our neighbours who have departed this mortal coil thanks to the pandemic and wondering when the hell is  this going to end.

Ironically, we know it will end. That’s been the history of pandemics through the millennia including the Bubonic Plague in the 1600s and the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 50 or so right here in Cranbrook.

But what do we do until the end?

First, I think some kindness and tolerance to our fellow human beings would help immensely. As for the anti-vaxxers, who genuinely doubt the efficacy of masks and the often-careless ways we wear them, can’t you cut the rest of us a little slack? Will it ruin your day – or your life – if you wear a face covering at least in public or when you’re around other people? It’s called good manners and it’s never actually hurt anyone and done this miserable world a lot of good.

Then there’s the vaccines. I’m not going to argue their merit other than to say the world’s scientists and immunologists think they give protection even though the pandemic seems to be growing faster than ever now. But instead of doing nothing or injecting Ivermectin, Vitamin D or peanut butter into your veins, I think we should take the advice of the professionals in the field even though I wonder how many booster shots we’ll have to take before the pandemic is tamed? Or will the plague eventually tame itself without shutting down the economy.

So, what is it? Saving the economy or saving people? Unless you’re friends with the Grim Reaper, I would think that’s an easy decision to make.

e-KNOW file photo

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and is triple vaxxed.

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